Arnold, Arnhem

Arnold – City farmer and CarbageRun rally driver

I stumbled across Arnold and his crazy car in the city centre of Hamburg. When not driving around Europe with his friends as part of a rally, he is a city farmer for life keeping a farm in the city of Arnhem in Holland, where they do educational projects, so people and school children get to know traditional farming business.

Arnold, what is your dream?

Well, for now it’s just to have a good race, a good rally, a good CarbageRun this week with two friends of mine. And to have lot’s of fun and to come home safe again.

What is CarbageRun? Tell us about it.

CarbageRun is an organization in Holland that organizes three different runs a year. And the idea is that you buy a car, not anymore expensive than 500 Euro and at least 17 years old. And then you do something to it, so that you stand out, because there is a price for that. In summer, or as we do now in winter, they take you all the way through Europe usually somewhere between 4000 to 5000 kilometres. Everyday you get certain assignments, funny dumb assignments with no purpose what so ever. You use the Internet a lot and try to find stuff. Sometimes you need to find a specific place for example.

How many assignments do you have?

You never know, for today only two. We have to find a little Lego-Elk with a specific Lego-number. You bring that to the jury table. Another one is that we have to take a picture of our car standing on four Lego-blocks, so it has to be 15cm off the ground. So that’s an assignment you get. We will work it out. 😉

Is the goal to raise some money?

Some teams do, but we don’t really. We’re are our own goal. Some people do and they have sponsors, because it cost some money of course.

What are you doing in your day-to-day life?

I’m the keeper of a city farm in Arnhem, that’s basically my dream in life. My work is what I like best. I take care of a lot of animals and we have a fairly big farm in the city of Arnhem. We have two actually, they belong together. It’s right within the city. We have about 40 hectares of land in and out the city and we have everything from sheep, goats, cows and horses, even insects, because it’s sort of an educational farm and we bring all types of little animals to school. School children come and visit us and we provide lessons.

A city farm, that sounds great! Is it like a social project?

No, it’s city owned. We’re department of the city of Arnhem and that’s what we do. In Arnhem we have two big city farms with the whole educational program. People are welcome 365 days a year to visit us and school children come and learn about animals and farming.

How did you end up being a city farmer?

In the Netherlands it’s a fairly common thing. Many cities have it. I used to always want to become a farmer, but I didn’t have any relations to farming so it was quite hard for me to become a farmer. Actually through my wife I got into this world of city farming and I’ve been doing it for 18 years now.

What do you like most about it?

Well, the combination of working with animals, being outside, but also with people and organizing events. Building our business for the future. To make people aware of farming in the city, so they get to know traditional farming business. Well there is a lot of space around our farm, where children can play outside and get dirty and wet.

Thanks Arnold for the interview! You can get latest updates about Arnold’s team as part of the CarbageRun rally on their website and learn more about the city farm Arnhem here.